


Negotiations

by Alistra (ALeaseInWonderland)



Series: The Devil, the Spider and the Skull [3]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Daredevil (Comics), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Punisher (Comics)
Genre: BAMF Natasha Romanov, Dubious Morality, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Mission Related, POV Frank Castle, aro Matt Murdock, implied minor Frank Castle/Matt Murdock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:21:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29533992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALeaseInWonderland/pseuds/Alistra
Summary: "Let's pretend for a minute that I don't hate your plan," Frank says, "I fail to see why it has to be me playing the chump at your side."Natasha needs a partner on a mission. Plans are hatched and friends are made.
Relationships: Frank Castle & Matt Murdock, Frank Castle & Natasha Romanov, Matt Murdock & Natasha Romanov
Series: The Devil, the Spider and the Skull [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2169780
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Negotiations

**Author's Note:**

> For Feathers, who doesn't tire listening to my analysis of characters I essentially know nothing about.

"No," Frank's voice carries no particular heat, but it's the kind of firm and unshakeable that makes it abundantly clear that his mind is made up.

Sadly, Natasha Romanoff doesn't care.

"Listen, Frank, do you really think you were my first choice here? You want Jordan Marley and their operation off the street as much as I do. And like it or not, that card game is the fastest and easiest way to accomplish that."

"I'm not playing your boyfriend," Frank refuses, dispelling some of his nervous energy by stacking their three sets of dishes and taking them over to the kitchen sink where he leans back, crosses his arms and glowers.

"These are old-fashioned gangsters. It's a boys's club. If they do let me in the door, you better believe it's not going to be for a friendly game of cards," she says, rather matter-of-fact.

Frank frowns.

"You'd kill them if they tried anything," he says reflexively, more to reassure himself than her. Despite all the things he's seen and done, it's the casual overstepping towards those perceived as weaker that gets him every time, like an icy fist closing around his gut.

"I would," Natasha says, with a miniscule smile and uncomfortable gentleness that implies she's read his mind, "if I wanted to blow my cover right off the bat, that is."

She lets him stew on that for a moment, probably banking on him coming around to her argument. Frank grabs a second beer for Matt and a glass of tap water for himself before returning to his seat at the table.

Matt, who has been curiously quiet throughout the entire proposal, closes his hand around the chill of the beer bottle Frank places against his fingertips.

"Thanks," he says, shooting a brief smile in Frank's general direction which, as always, sparks that forbidden little feeling in the hollow space underneath Frank's ribs; an emotion he doesn't want to think about, least of all when a much too observant Russian is looking from one of them to the other with a sphinx-like expression.

"Let's pretend for a minute that I don't hate your plan," Frank says, directing her attention safely back onto the job at hand. "I fail to see why it has to be me playing the chump at your side."

Natasha almost beams with the confidence of gaining ground. Rationally, Frank's known for a long time that she's an attractive woman, but in this moment, he understands for the first time what Matt meant when he joked that the only reason Natasha kept coming back to him, was that he was immune to her most effective weapon. Objectively, it's a very nice smile. Frank can see how other men - or probably not only men - might be motivated to do all sorts of things to have it directed their way.

"Despite its simplicity, this is still a delicate operation," Natasha continues, unaware of his musings. She drains the last of her own beer and sets the bottle aside. "The number of men I trust to have my back in a situation like this is very limited, especially if the goal here is to be inconspicuous, right up until we're not."

"Bringing a blind man to join a card game doesn't meet that criterium," Matt chimes in, toasting them with his drink.

"Exactly. I can't ask Matt. My ideal first choice for this type of mission happens to be equipped with a prosthetic that makes him very recognizable."

"What about Hawkeye?" Frank asks.

"Clint's got a Robin Hood complex and would insist on finishing the game to distribute the winnings among the poor," Matt says.

"Shut up he wouldn't," Natasha disagrees, laughing as she kicks him under the table.

"He might," Matt insists, grinning from ear to ear as he evades the pointy tip of her boot.

"Yeah alright, he might," she caves, standing to get herself a new drink. "But also he's in South America on business."

As she returns, she places the bottle on the table, gifts Frank with another one of those dazzling smiles and puts her hands on both his shoulders.

"Please," she implores, sitting down sideways in his lap as if she had any right to do so. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Matt raise an amused eyebrow high enough that it clears the frame of his dark shades.

"God, Frank, are you actually afraid of some basic female attention?" Natasha complains when Frank just sits straight-backed and visibly uncomfortable with the arm she's wrapped around his shoulders. " You're stiff as a board." 

"What, already?" Matt asks with feigned innocence.

Frank flips him off with enough force that the air displacement alone will bring his point across.

"Is this some kind of game to you?" Frank forces out between grit teeth, torn between just pushing her off his lap and the deeply ingrained knowledge that he'll never touch a woman unkindly unless it is in self-defense.

"It is." Natasha replies, perfectly serious. "It's a game of charades and the grand prize is the freedom of a bunch of young women who've been lured into a life of crime with false promises from a bastard who has anything but their best interest in mind."

Frank searches the ceiling, the drops of spilled stroganoff on the table, the dirty panes of Matt's windows and anything in between, but none of them hold any helpful reply to that.

"What exactly is it that you'd need me to do?" he asks resignedly, and doesn't miss how Natasha discreetly releases a breath she'd been holding and Matt tries to hide a proud smile in a deep drink of beer.

"I need you to intimidate some bad people into letting you join their illegal gambling. And bring me, your dumb but attractive girlfriend, as a good luck charm."

"That's all?" Frank asks, suspicious. "So what then?"

"While you play cards, I'm going to liberate the women's passports from Marley's safe in the back room before returning to my man's side with none of them the wiser."

"And if these guys object to that plan?"

It's hard to describe the expression that crosses her face, but it's it's a far cry from that earlier seductive smile; calm, and certain, and so cold, it makes the hair on Frank's arm stand on end. "Then I'm prepared to opt for a course of action I am not going to discuss in front of our legal representative here."

"Natasha," Matt warns, sitting straighter as the corners of his mouth draw down in unhappy admonishment, "you promised me not to go in there guns blazing."

"I promised not to go in with the specific intent of killing anybody," she agrees, her eyes firmly locked on Frank's, "and I will do my best to stick with zero fatalities. However, I've done my homework and none of these gentlemen would be a loss to society."

Frank swallows against the unpleasant taste of familiar righteous anger on his tongue. He's had this argument with Matt too many times; is likely to have it too many times over yet.

"They specifically target the most vulnerable" Natasha emphasizes, her eyes never leaving Frank's and _wrath_ simmering close under the surface of her composure.   
  
"Are you with me?" she asks quietly, and it encompasses more than just this job. It speaks of the fundamental belief that some people are beyond salvation or rehabilitation, that some of them need to be put down for good and that unlike Matt, she is willing and able to sacrifice her own immortal soul to make that happen.

"Yes," Frank says, holding her heavy gaze. "Yes, I'm with you."


End file.
